Carlos Colón and Hercules Ayala Walk Through Fire

I have a lot of blind spots in my appreciation of professional wrestling, and of them I’d count Puerto Rico as the most egregious considering my tastes. Yes, I have a passing familiarity with Carlos Colón’s work, spurred on by my friend, the poet Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, who read my book, Hold Me Gorilla Monsoon, and talked to me about how he was a hero figure on the island. We were drinking absinthe in his apartment in Philadelphia and watched one of his matches against Abdullah the Butcher. It rocked.

Like a typical dipshit American, my exposure to Colón from there continued along the lines of watching him against my favorite American workers: Stan Hansen, Terry Funk, Ric Flair. I love this era of wrestling in general, but always found it hard to lock in on outside of the mainland United States — I wouldn’t call it a language barrier, but the thing I love most about watching 70s-80s wrestling is the weird, raw, strange, and beautiful perspective it gives me on where it was made, the alternate popular histories of Detroit or Georgia or North Carolina or Louisiana or Alabama or Portland spooling out on film, with the commercials if I’m lucky, and Puerto Rico (and Mexico, and Canada, and Japan) never quite fell into my lap like that. You know how it goes from there — you hear about this great stuff, allow it to collect a kind of folkloric value, and keep it in the back of your mind for later, whenever you’re finally ready to crawl out of the rabbit hole that kept you from further study in the first place. 

When I pitched “Horror Month” to Joseph, I said we had to have a bloodbath. Joseph initially suggested the Muta Scale match or JBL vs. Eddie Guerrero, but he’s not a Muta guy and it’ll be a while before I want to cover the WWE, which is when I remembered the bloody visage of Carlos Colón. There are many bloodbaths to choose from, but I wanted something I hadn’t seen, and when an old usenet post about bloody brawls mentioned his feud with Hercules Ayala, I pitched it. Joseph came back with “the fire match?” I didn’t even know there was a fire match, y’all. 

But here we are, one year into their feud, two men bound and determined to burn each other to death if they must. How did they get here? A professional rivalry, Ayala turning heel and joining up with manager Chicky Starr, swapping blood and championships with Colón over the course of a year. At an awards ceremony, Hercules, resplendent and insane in a white and silver tuxedo, stands to accept the award for Wrestler of the Year before Gordon Solie calls the winner’s name. That winner, of course, is Colón. The camerawork at he ceremony is exquisite, zooming out from a stunned Ayala just as Colón crosses the visual field to accept the award, the heels in shock during his speech. Carlos dedicates the award to his wife, Nancy, calling her to the stage to take a bow. Ayala follows, voicing his disbelief at the result — he is, after all, the champion — before decking Carlos and throwing Nancy to the ground. Colón throws his body over Nancy’s on instinct, to protect her, but this puts her in the line of fire as Ayala stomps him out. It’s a scene, the likes of which Gordon Solie has never seen, and Ayala is immediately fined $10K and stripped of his championship. But if you know anything about romance, you know that ain’t enough: This bastard’s got to burn. 

Frankly, it’s incredible that the whole of Bayamón doesn’t go down in flames with him. The referees are pouring a lot of fuel on the two layers of rags strung up around the ring, and when they’re lit it’s a full-on blaze, a reckless spectacle of violence that rivals and predates the absurd setpieces of the 90s deathmatches of FMW, IWA Japan, and W*ING, all of whom at one point employed WWC booker Victor Quinones. Like a peak Onita anniversary show match, this one is about justice, pure and simple. The flames keep things in the ring and away from the ropes for the most part, so Colón dishes out big, broad strikes punches and headbutts, opening Ayala up early. When Colón tries to burn Ayala, it’s more smoke and mirrors than anything — the camera can’t get too close and the crowd can’t see, so he pulls a rag close to Ayala’s face without touching it, or whips him into the ropes and trusts Hercules to sell the burn. It’s hot, no doubt, and probably plenty painful, but any safety police watching are more likely to find issue with the fans throwing garbage at Ayala through the fire and the fact that the ring apron isn’t tied down despite the breeze than anything the wrestlers do to each other.

I kind of love that they just let the rags burn without reigniting them, especially when Ayala takes over, as if he’s withstood and smothered Colón’s burning desire to end his rival once and for all. Colón burns his knee, giving Ayala an obvious target, but having wrestled the likes of Ric Flair in the past, quickly counters a figure four leg lock, using the momentum to batter Ayala’s leg in return before locking his own figure four in. The referee calls for the bell, but Colón refuses to let go — this is a matter of honor for him, not just about beating Ayala but avenging his wife. Colón leaves the victor, Ayala can’t leave on his own two feet. Justice.

As for how the match rates, I have nothing approaching a scientific evaluation of what’s on film. It’s a hot angle and a hot match, and while I’m not exactly let down by the fact that the fire dies down and the match swiftly ends once the spectacle of it has died down a little, future efforts (like the W*ING encounter between Matsunaga and Mr. Pogo) make this one feel downright safe by comparison, for good and for ill, and the fact that this isn’t even the end of the Colón/Ayala feud puts a damper on things, too. I’m not asking for anyone to actually get set on fire for the sake of my entertainment, but I at least want to see one of these jawns lose an eyebrow, you know? 

Rating: ****